


The Bee Movie Except The Bee Is Nigel From Charlie Countryman

by stratumgermanitivum



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: Bees, Crack, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, researching bees and then disregarding most of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stratumgermanitivum/pseuds/stratumgermanitivum
Summary: Adam was a boy. Nigel was a bee. A love story, probably.





	The Bee Movie Except The Bee Is Nigel From Charlie Countryman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ishxallxgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishxallxgood/gifts), [nephila_clavipes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nephila_clavipes/gifts).



> This is absolutely the dumbest thing I have ever written, and stems from [this](https://twitter.com/stratumgermani1/status/1100148892107182086) twitter thread.
> 
> I have so many regrets in life.

Really, it wasn’t as weird as people made it out to be.

Okay, it was incredibly weird, but Nigel was completely sentient, had actually tested as having an above-average intelligence for an adult male, and really, it wasn’t anyone else’s business.

People still stared at Adam when he walked by, but that might have been because he constantly looked like he was talking to himself.

It was really all Beth’s fault, anyway. Adam took no blame for any of this.

_____

Beth had sent him flowers, a heavy vase full of reds and pinks. An apology for their all-too-easy breakup. Adam didn’t quite see the point. For one thing, they were still good friends, and she’d apologized in person three times already. For another, Adam didn’t see the point to cut flowers. They would die soon enough, long before Adam adjusted to their presence and the mild fragrance that drifted past his sensitive nose.

He put them on the windowsill anyway, to catch the sunlight, and filled the vase with water.

_____

“Hey. Hey, gorgeous.”

Adam had fallen asleep on the couch. His back ached, like it always did when he slept twisted up, and his nose itched. He batted a heavy hand at it, groaning.

“Watch it!”

There was a man in his apartment. There should not have been anyone in his apartment, Beth was not due for dinner tonight. His nose itched again. Adam blinked awake and went cross-eyed trying to stare at the black and yellow blur pacing the bridge of his nose. There was a bee on his _face_.

Adam yelped and fell off the couch.

“Don’t panic! Ugh, this is why we never talk to any of you, you _always_ panic.”

The bee. The bee was talking. The _bee_ was _talking_ , in _English_. To _Adam_.

Maybe he had scurvy. His father had always said Adam would get scurvy from living on so much mac and cheese. Could scurvy cause hallucinations?

“You alright, gorgeous?” The bee drifted closer, hovering just in front of Adam’s face. Adam scrambled backwards across the living room floor.

“Stay back!”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” The bee scoffed, chasing after him.

“I’m allergic to bees!” Adam insisted.

“Well, I’m allergic to stinging people, so we’re on even footing.”

That was odd enough to get Adam to sit still, tilting his head curiously. “Bees aren’t allergic to stinging people, that makes no sense.”

“Well, I’ll die if I do it, gorgeous, so I might as well be.”

“That’s not an allergy, that’s a biological misfortune.”

“Whatever you want to call it, I won’t be stinging you. And you won’t be swatting me. Deal?” The bee extended a limb, as if Adam might shake his hand. Adam stared at it until the bee seemed to realize the impossibility.

“Anyway,” The bee muttered, “We usually don’t talk to you people, but you closed your window before you fell asleep and I’m _way_ too hungover to test the glass for weak spots.”

“Bees don’t drink,” Adam said, although that was far from the most important issue to focus on. The bee shrugged. The _bee_ _shrugged._

“Your flowers are over-ripe. Tasty for me, bad for the headaches.”

“… You got _drunk_ off my roses.”

“Yup.”

Adam sighed and opened the window.

_____

The bee- “Nigel, gorgeous.” - came to visit a couple of times a week, usually when Adam was sitting on the front step, people watching. The first time, Adam wasn’t even sure it _was_ the same bee, until it started rooting through discarded cigarette butts for left-over tobacco. Adam had never seen any other bee do something so unusual.

As it turned out, all bees spoke English, not just Nigel. They just hadn’t ever seen the point in communicating with humans, who were overwhelmingly huge and, according to Nigel, ‘not all that bright.’

“I mean, you humans can’t even figure out _honey_ ,” Nigel said derisively, waving a fuzzy little leg the way a human might dismissively wave their hand, “But _you_ gorgeous… I’ve seen some of these books of yours, you’re a bright little thing, aren’t you?”

“I’m an engineer,” Adam said, trying not to look baffled at the idea of a _bee_ calling _him_ little.

“We have those!” Nigel said excitedly. “Wow, sharing jobs with humans, who would have thought?”

_____

“Smoking is bad for you,” Adam informed Nigel once. Only once, because even on teeny tiny features, and with almost zero knowledge of social cues, Adam still knew to describe the look he got as ‘withering.’

“Life is short,” Nigel told him, finishing his makeshift cigarette and flying up to land on Adam’s shoulder. It made conversation easier, now that Adam had finally stopped flinching when Adam came too close.

It brought an uncomfortable topic to mind. “I’ve known you for almost three months now,” Adam murmured, “That must be more than half your lifespan.”

Adam couldn’t see Nigel’s face, but he could hear the huff of breath. “Yeah, maybe in _captivity_ ,” He drawled, “Darling, I’m almost 40 years old. That’s ‘human years’, mind you, ‘full rotations around the sun’ and all that jazz.”

Adam just about fell over. “That’s… that’s a lot longer than I was expecting.”

“We rotate out for the humans,” Nigel explained, “We like our privacy. And while we appreciate what _decent_ beekeepers have done for our species, nobody wants to be watched forever. We serve a few months in the box and then swap out with our sick and elderly. They get a cushy, guarded retirement, and the humans are none the wiser. We all look the same to you, anyway.”

Maybe so. Maybe before. But Adam was beginning to see the differences, the things that made Nigel stand out.

Or maybe he was losing his mind.

“Bees have mandatory conscription?”

Nigel laughed, “Yeah, you could call it that.”

“Do they also have birthdays?”

_____

For Nigel’s birthday, Adam did a little research and spent a frankly frightening amount of money on special orders. Teeny tiny dollhouses were apparently very trendy, but he’d still needed some of the clothing altered. He’d ordered shirts, only. He wasn’t sure Nigel would want to wear anything over his stinger.

Nigel loved the five shirts, fawning over them each individually. He threw one on right away, a blue button down with near-microscopic dogs on it. Adam was not at all sure how someone had managed to design a fabric with such a tiny pattern, let alone sew something with it, but it had cost a good chunk of his savings to acquire, so he was glad Nigel liked it.

What Nigel liked even more was the dollhouse furniture laid out across his favorite windowsill: The smallest, softest bed Adam could find, a tiny wardrobe for his new shirts, and a little table and chair set, complete with a bite-sized cupcake. Bite-sized for a human, anyway, it was still huge atop the tiny table, bigger than Nigel himself. It was the smallest cake Adam could find, and the grocery store only sold them in dozens. But Nigel was thrilled, attacking it with gusto with his brand new, tiny silverware.

“This is too much, Adam.”

Adam shrugged. “You said your hive is in the park. It’s a long way to fly, since you visit me so often.

_____

For Adam’s birthday, he awoke to a mildly alarming swarm of disgruntled bees, bearing a jar of freshly-made honey. Honey was not to Adam’s tastes, usually, but it was a particular honor for a human to be willingly gifted honey by honeybees themselves, so he accepted it with a carefully practiced grace.

_____

It came to Adam all at once, a sudden flash of unexpected emotion. They’re on the couch, Nigel curled up with his dollhouse blanket on Adam’s chest, watching a program on space Adam has seen frequently enough to mouth the words to. He stops, midsentence, and swallows.

Almost a year. They’ve known each other almost a year, a year of Nigel flying into his life more days than he didn’t, of seeing Nigel more often than he saw any other living creature, of knowing everything about Nigel, and vice versa, and _oh_.

“If you were human, Nigel, I think I’d be in love with you.”

Nigel chuckled, looking up at Adam with his tiny bee face. “I’m in love with you anyway, gorgeous.”

“Oh. That’s okay, then.”

Adam was crazy. Adam was losing his mind.

But didn’t they always say love was blind?

_____

“A bee,” Beth said, her voice flat, monotone. Most things sounded very similar to Adam, but even he could see the way her face went very blank. “Your new boyfriend… Is a bee.”

“He’s a sentient bee!” Adam protests. From his shoulder, Nigel nods.

“We’re all sentient, actually. We just never talked to _you_.”

Beth straightened up to her full height, a tight frown crossing her features. “It’s very lovely to meet you, Nigel,” She says, “Can I talk to Adam? _Alone?_ ” The last word came out through gritted teeth. Adam felt a flash of alarm, but Nigel chuckled and fluttered off.

“A _bee???”_ Beth shrieked, once Nigel had busied himself with the florist next door to the café. Adam didn’t see the point to dismissing Nigel if she was going to be so loud, but Beth had always confused him. “Adam, honey, you can’t date a bee.”

“Nigel and I share common interests,” Adam countered, “We enjoy each other’s company.”

“Then be friends,” Beth said, “You can’t be romantically involved with bees, Adam, that’s bestiality.”

“Technically, the major concern with bestiality is that the animal is not capable of giving informed consent to sexual contact.”

“Sex!” Beth shouted, loud enough that an elderly woman at the next table gave a stern glare and a loud, disapproving huff. Beth quieted down, red-faced. “ _Sex_ ,” She whispered, “You can’t have sex with a bee, Adam. Sex is an important part of romantic relationships.”

“Asexuals have romantic relationships all the time.”

“We dated for 9 months, Adam, I know you aren’t asexual!”

“No,” Adam agreed, “And bees die if they have penetrative sex, due to their penis becoming embedded in the queen bee and ripping off.”

Beth went from red to pale. This was a reaction Adam didn’t properly understand, so he merely continued his train of thought.

“We’ve found that a combination of dirty talk and masturbation is satisfactory for both of us.”

The elderly woman stood up and went to complain to the manager.  Beth dropped her face to the table with a groan and a loud thud.

Adam did not understand people. Bees were much more straightforward.

**Author's Note:**

> Things I learned about bees: They live about 150-180 days on average, and explode after fucking.  
> Things I ignored about bees: All of that.
> 
> I... I don't even know what to say. I hate that I wrote this. I hate. _Hate._ Also am unreasonably proud of it because I guess I can write just about anything, now.
> 
> Nothing will ever be worse than this, enjoy!


End file.
